Institute for Frontier Materials, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria 3200, Australia.
Center for Soft Condensed Matter Physics and Interdisciplinary Research & School of Physical Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, P. R. China.
ACS Biomater Sci Eng. 2022 Jan 10;8(1):89-99. doi: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.1c01228. Epub 2021 Dec 3.
Hydrogels mimic the natural extracellular matrix in terms of their nanofibrous structure and large water content. However, the lack of a combination of properties including sufficient heterogeneity in the gel structure, intrinsic antimicrobial activity, and bioactivity limits the efficiency of hydrogels for tissue engineering applications. In this work, a hydrogel with a combination of these properties was fabricated by hybridizing silk fibroin with a low-molecular-weight peptide gelator. It was observed that silk fibroin and the peptide gelator assembled orthogonally in sequence. While the morphology of silk fibroin nanofibrils was not affected by the peptide gelator, silk fibroin promoted the formation of wider nanoribbons of the peptide gelator by modulating its nucleation and growth. Orthogonal assembly maintained the antimicrobial activity of the peptide gelator and the excellent biocompatibility of silk fibroin in the hybrid gel. The hybrid gel also demonstrated improved interactions with cells, an indicator of a higher bioactivity, possibly due to the heterogeneous double network structure.
水凝胶在其纳米纤维结构和高含水量方面模拟了天然细胞外基质。然而，缺乏一些特性的结合，包括凝胶结构的充分非均质性、内在抗菌活性和生物活性，限制了水凝胶在组织工程应用中的效率。在这项工作中，通过将丝素蛋白与低分子量肽凝胶剂杂交，制备了一种具有这些特性结合的水凝胶。观察到丝素蛋白和肽凝胶剂按顺序正交组装。虽然丝素蛋白纳米纤维的形态不受肽凝胶剂的影响，但丝素蛋白通过调节其成核和生长，促进了肽凝胶剂更宽纳米带的形成。正交组装保持了肽凝胶剂的抗菌活性和丝素蛋白在混合凝胶中的优异生物相容性。混合凝胶还表现出与细胞更好的相互作用，这是更高生物活性的一个指标，可能是由于异质的双重网络结构。
